


Boundary

by FortySevens



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Feels, Sharing a Bed, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortySevens/pseuds/FortySevens
Summary: Karen Page has a realization about the sleeping part that comes with sleeping with Frank Castle.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Comments: 22
Kudos: 155





	Boundary

**Author's Note:**

> Set in some indeterminate time post TPS2 where everything is as it should be.

Between the two of them, Karen is always the first to fall asleep.

No matter how late it is, no matter how exhausted he is, no matter how Karen’s managed to turn him into a gasping, limp mess by the end of some nights—which she is very, very good at—Frank somehow always manages to muster the energy to roll over onto his side, curl up behind her and bury his face against her shoulder, his fingertips stroking up and down her arm until she eventually drifts off.

Which is, in Karen’s not-at-all humble opinion, the absolute best way to fall asleep.

And waking up with Frank is more of the same.

He is always curled up behind her, cocooning her in warmth, his fingertips pressed low on her hip, under the hem of her sleep pants until neither of them has any other choice but to get started with their days.

Or, one some occasions, entirely throw their days out the proverbial window and just stay in bed.

It’s—it’s everything Karen never allowed herself to hope for. Never even occurred to her that this life would be possible.

She was never naive enough to think that it would be easy—and it sure as hell wasn’t, sure as hell _isn’t_ —but the idea of being able to balance a life of doing the thing she loves and working with her best friends, while also having Frank in her life as her _best_ , best friend, her person, the one who understands every single side of her and _accepts_ her without question, it’s—

The long and short of it is that she never thought the train-wreck from Fagan Corners could have something this good.

Karen brushes her fingertips against the back of the arm wrapped around her waist, fits her fingers in the gaps between his and squeezes. Frank grips her back, something low rumbling through his chest like it always does in the morning, when he’s still gathering the wherewithal to start speaking for the first time that day. He leans up and brushes his mouth to her temple, “Morning,” he murmurs against her skin, tugs her even closer, one knee sliding between hers.

“Morning,” she mumbles back, her fingers flexing against his before she turns in his arms, presses a lingering kiss to his jaw and smiles against his skin when that knee of his fits its way between her thighs again.

“When do you need to meet Nelson?” Frank asks, one large, wam palm sliding up her back.

Karen lifts her head off the pillow, cranes her neck to check the clock on her nightstand, “Not until after lunch,” she tips her forehead, brushes her nose alongside his. “You have plans this morning?”

Frank grins, wicked, and before she knows it, she’s being rolled to her back, “I do now.”

This.

This is something she never thought she’d get.

But there’s no way in hell she’s going to give it up.

—

Karen wakes, and for a flash of a moment between sleeping and regaining awareness, forgets that Frank was in bed and curled around her when she fell asleep.

It’s still very, very early and she doesn’t know what exactly woke her—not a nightmare, she doesn’t have to pee, she’s not thirsty, no weird leg cramps—she blinks into the inky blue darkness and slowly regains her bearings, and that’s when she hears the sleepy snort behind her.

Oh.

Frank _is_ here.

She definitely thought she dreamed that.

Rolling onto her back, Karen tilts her head and takes in his sleeping form. He’s lying on his stomach, curled up around the pillow he’s long-since appropriated for his himself. Frank’s different when he’s sleeping, the lines on his face less pronounced and a subtle, slight lightness in his shoulders, like the entire world isn’t bearing down on him anymore.

The fact that he’s here, in her bed, a bed he spends more and more of his nights in than his own—she wouldn’t trade that for anything.

But also, _why_ is he all the way on the other side of the bed?

It’s not huge—allegedly, it’s supposed to be a queen, but she’s always been a little skeptical about it—but it looks like Frank’s put as much space as possible between them without him physically leaving the bed.

She knows it’s completely irrational and unrealistic to think that they’re going to sleep curled up around one another, every moment of every night, but—

_It’s so fucking cold._

Before she knows it, she’s reaching out, and the second her fingertips brush against his shoulder, Frank is _awake_.

Like he wasn’t even asleep, his eyes snap open and he leans up on his elbow before she has the chance to blink, before her hand even fishes falling down onto the mattress between them. Frank looks around, almost frantic, checking every dark and shadowed corner of the room before his gaze settles on her, “You okay?” He rasps, chest heaving a little.

“Sorry I woke you,” she says instead of answering, because the last thing she wants is to have him lose even more sleep, and especially not because of her.

Frank shakes his head, “’S okay,” he reaches out and grasps her fingers, brushes his mouth over her knuckles. “Christ, you’re freezing.”

“A little bit,” she murmurs, still on the edge of sleep as she scoots into that gap between them.

With a shake of his head, Frank drops back down to his side, tugs her gains him, into his warmth, “C’mere.”

Karen falls back asleep with Frank drawing his fingertips up and down her back, and the space she found between them is forgotten.

—

Forgotten, at least, until she wakes a few nights later, and finds the same distance between them.

This time, Karen does wake because she has to pee, and she slides out of bed to take care of that, stops at the foot of the bed on her way back in.

Frank’s lying on his stomach, one arm curled under his pillow, the other crooked at the elbow in the space Karen distinctly remembers falling asleep on before waking up inches away.

There’s something—she can’t quite put her finger on it, probably because it’s _oh-dark-very-late_ —and Karen shakes her head, because she is _not_ awake enough to be in the headspace to even try to piece together this puzzle.

She slides into bed, tries to be as gentle about it as possible, but Frank exhales heavily, and she knows she’s woken him up. He doesn’t react the same way he did when she woke him up the other night, but still reaches for her as she settles the comforter—and extra blanket that Frank brought over the other night—back over her.

Turning onto her side, Karen cups her hand over his jaw and then moves up to thumb over the scar on his temple, “Go back to sleep.”

Frank slings an arm around her waist, and sleepily mumbles against her, “You first.”

She’s too tired to argue with him, and she does.

—

“Frank. _Frank_.”

He lets out a sleepy snort, “Huh?”

From her perch on the stool at the kitchen counter, where she’s organizing the rundown of evidence for one of Matt and Foggy’s cases, Karen turns away from her laptop and drops her chin on her palm. She watches Frank sit up from where he’d dozed off on the couch, scrubs a palm over his face, “You say something?”

She smiles as he rubs his eyes and slumps further on the couch. He stretches his legs out far enough that he pushes the coffee table back a few inches and his sweatpants ride up his ankles, before his heels drop to the floor with a thud.

“Frank, you had a long day,” he was up half the night last night, and then a long evening at group with Curtis. “Go to bed. I’ll be in in a little while.”

He meets her gaze for a long moment, and then sighs and shakes his head, “‘m fine. Get your stuff done. I can wait up.”

“You wait up any longer and your back is going to hate you in the morning.”

“My back already hates me,” he waves a dismissive hand. “I’m fine.”

Karen tilts her head, because yes, Frank is stubborn as shit on all accounts, and his back _does_ hate him, but this is—

This is different.

Slowly, very slowly, a handful of puzzle pieces fall, not into place, but in the same general vicinity.

He must notice the wheels turning, arches a brow at her, “What are you thinking?”

Her brows furrow, “I _always_ fall asleep first.”

“Yeah, and?”

Bingo.

He said that _way_ too fast, and Karen _knows_ there is more to it.

“Frank,” she slides off the stool and pads across her tiny living room, takes his hand when he holds it out to her and lets him pull her onto the couch beside him, curls her legs up under her. “You want to tell me what this is really about?”

For a moment, Frank just looks at her, until finally he sighs and lets his head fall against the back of the couch, “I uh,” his throat works. “I don’t sleep too well, some nights.”

“I-”

Frank shakes his head and looks at her again, cuts her off with a squeeze to her hand, “It’s better than it’s been in a while, especially since Bill, but I still have rough nights,” he swallows hard, like the words are sticking in his throat, and Karen tamps down on the hate that surges through her at the thought of Billy Russo’s mere existence, as long dead as he may be today. “And as much as I love being next to you, and having you right next to me when we sleep, I can’t—I _won’t_ risk hurting you.”

He breaks off, but she knows he’s not done yet, waits it out until—

“I hurt Maria once,” he manages to say, even though it sounds like every word pains him, and it breaks her heart. “It was only once, but that was before—before _everything_ that’s happened, and I can’t help but think—no, I _know_ , that you’re at a hell of a lot more of a risk of me accidentally hurting you than I was with her.”

The words sink in, and something clenches hard in her chest, “Frank,” she sighs, drops her forehead to his shoulder and then shifts and presses her mouth to the arch of it. “Why didn’t you mention this sooner?”

He scrubs his hand over his mouth, mutters, “Don’t know how to bring it up,” into his palm.

Fuck, she loves this stubborn mess of a man so goddamn much.

“So you were just going to wait for me to fall asleep before pushing me to the other side of the bed for the rest of forever?”

His eyes go bright red, and she watches him flush all the way down to his neck, “Fuck, I don’t know. Karen, I don’t—I’m not—”

This time, she does cut him off, “I _know_ who you are, Frank. Right now, today,” she presses a kiss to the arch of his flushed cheekbone. “I know you. And you can snuggle me all you like when I’m asleep.”

At that, Frank’s eyes light up, and he leans in, but Karen stalls him with a hand to his jaw, “ _But_ ,” she says, pushing him back a little to look him in the eye. “You need to promise me something.”

His brow ticks again, “Uh, sure.”

“I want you to promise me, that when you are tired, _you will go to bed_ ,” she leans in and kisses him, quick. “Okay?”

Frank laughs against her mouth, “Okay. Promise.”

Karen lets him kiss her for a while—because _of course_ she does—and then she pulls back, wrinkles her nose at him, “Frank. Go to bed.”

Wrinkling his nose right back at her, he tugs on her hand, toying with her fingers, “Come with me.”

“I have to finish my report for Foggy and Matt,” Frank gives her a look that tells her he couldn’t give two shits about her obligations to the Nelson and Murdock side of _Nelson, Murdock & Page_. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she snorts, pecks him on the mouth again. “Go lie down. I’ll be right there.”

With a grumble that edges more on fondness than anything else, Frank pushes off the couch and lumbers in the direction of her room. Karen shakes her head and heads back to her laptop, perching on the stool as she listens for the sounds of Frank moving around the bathroom.

When she hears the light click off, followed by the creak of the bedsprings, Karen grabs her laptop. Heading into her room, she finds Frank stretched out on his back on his side of the bed, “You coming or what?”

Rolling her eyes at him, Karen drops her computer on her nightstand and slides under the covers next to him, brows hiking to her hairline when Frank rolls over and throws his arm over her hips, snuggles up next to her, “Oh hi,” she mutters, digging her fingers into the short hairs at the nape of his neck. “You know, I still have to get some work done.”

“So, get your work done,” he mutters, closes his eyes.

Shaking her head, Karen grabs her laptop and props it on her lap, taps the trackpad until the screen lights back up.

She manages to get a little more work done, but between the warmth from her computer and the warmth of Frank’s arm around her, it’s incredibly difficult to actually focus on the words on the screen. She knows Frank is still awake because his breathing isn’t that even and he’s not snoring yet, but when her computer screen dims, she gives up and closes her laptop.

“Hey,” she murmurs as she twists a little to drop her computer back off on the nightstand and turns the lamp off, and Frank hums against her. “That promise about you actually going to sleep when you’re tired?” Frank nods against her hip. “I promise to keep a safe distance when I come to bed. And to roll you over when you inevitably fall asleep on me.”

“Okay,” he gives her waist a squeeze. “Want to start tomorrow?”

Karen laughs, slides to lie down on her back, turns her head so she and Frank are nose-to-nose, “Okay, fine,” she slides her over his back, running her thumb back and forth over the dimples at the small of his back. “Tomorrow’s fine, but you still need to go to sleep.”

“Nah,” Frank cups his hand over her jaw, his fingertips sliding into the hair at the nape of her neck. “I’ve got a second wind.”

Frank kisses her, rolling her onto her back, and—

Okay, she’s happy to fall asleep first, this time.


End file.
